US bases surrounding Iran

A picture worth a thousand words.

Add to that at least two nuclear armed carrier groups permanently on station and regularly navigating Iranian waters to enter the Gulf; a nuclear armed Israel which, unlike Iran operates entirely outside the terms of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (with full Western connivance); Constant bellicose rhetoric from the US threatening military attack.

Is it any wonder Iran is a bit paranoid?

All you need to know about the 2008 US presidential election

Priceless!



"I'm fine with it - He was going to get my meaningless vote anyway"

With humour like that, maybe there's hope for America yet!

Blair for EU President ? - **&!**£$%**

It appears that Tony (Road to Hell paved with his good, honest, well-meaning intentions) BLIAR is a serious potential candidate for the Presidency of the EU once that pesky Constitution - Oops I mean Treaty - has been successfully ratified.

There's a credible EU petition to stop him - Sign it and make your views known HERE

Hat-tip to Beau Bo D'Or for the Graphic

Gallows Humour

Hilarious, wry, black humour - US style. The general principles illustrated being equally applicable to the UK.

In the teeth of self-evidently unsustainable, fossil-fuelled, exponential economic and population growth on a finite planet, and with the real implications of 'peak-oil' becoming unsettlingly clear, this video encapsulates many of the State's instinctive responses; not to mention the true nature of its government.

I particularly liked 'Democracy at gunpoint', Celebrating uniformity of speech', 'One media - one voice', 'Fighting terrorism by creating it', 'Lest they forget - we'll remind';

and my favourite: 'Financial security through financial insolvency' which of course is the established (but teetering on the brink of collapse) first principle of Western globalised economics.

And ........ with all coins minted in depleted uranium - what else?

oh! - and watch for the 'a proportion of every Halliburton purchase is donated to.....' bye-line at the end - priceless !

Craig Murray Blacklisted ?

I was not in the least surprised to hear that Craig Murray seems to have become a sort of 'Black spot' character for the BBC and other main stream media.

In similar fashion to John Pilger and a few others, his habit of speaking truth to power is seen by the Establishment as dangerously subversive and threatening, and must therefore be dealt with accordingly. The comment I posted on Craig's blog was in danger of turning into an extended rant (as usual) so I thought I'd better cut it short and do the elaborating here instead:

I see Craig's experience as illustrative of the manner in which power in the UK deals with the sort of dissent that cannot be cowed by fear of its career consequences. There are certain unspoken but well defined boundaries for debate on pretty well all the major political issues. They encompass a globalised 'free'-trade world view with perpetual economic growth and 'progress' as its obligatory creed. The West is its embodiment with an over-arching narrative that tells of an alliance of progressive well-meaning but misunderstood and put-upon Nations (The Goodies) forced to defend themselves against aggressive reactionary forces of darkness that 'hate us for our freedom' and other such inanities (The Baddies). Step outside those boundaries in a manner judged threatening by and to the Establishment, and your card is marked accordingly. Craig's card has clearly been so marked.

The fount of real political power in the West is a Corporatocracy whose very existence is dependant upon such a world view. With honourable exceptions, its politicians, are either bought and paid for (or soon to be paid for "we promise") PR men (and thus eligible for high office and privy council status), or simpler-minded jobsworths, dependant upon their respective Parties for position and place (aka Sir Joseph Porter: 'I always voted at my party's call and I never thought of thinking for myself at all'). Speaking truth to power has become an infallible short cut to ending a career in UK politics. The MSM - especially the Murdoch press and the BBC - are the Corporatocracy's means of filtering and presenting news and current affairs for public consumption in a manner that is not only non-threatening, but that actively promotes this obligatory 'world view'.

Where dissent of the Craig Murray variety cannot be wholly ignored it is usually presented, either as the opinion of a lovable eccentric that can thus be safely indulged a little, or the rantings of a 'conspiracy theorist' (or other similar pejorative) to be ridiculed, hated or feared, depending upon context.

I wonder which of those roles Craig is being earmarked for?

17 to 8 - So who do you believe?

According to the IPCC report (Stockwell 1) , all 17 public witnesses say they heard no warnings from police officers, nor any indication they were police officers, prior to the execution of Jean Charles De Menezes at Stockwell Tube Station on 22nd July 2005. Whereas all 8 of the police officers involved say that 'armed police' warnings WERE shouted.

The police were allowed to prepare their evidence to the IPCC in collusion with one another. In other words they made sure they got their stories agreed first and, being police officers, understood the importance of closing ranks in their own defence. The public witnesses on the other hand, gave independent, non-collusive evidence with no interest other than providing individual accounts of what they witnessed.

So - rhetorical question - which would you put your money on:

1. All 17 public witnesses are mistaken?

2. The police are lying through their teeth?

Part of the Union ?

The Stupid English and their Scottish Masters
(or - the government we deserve)



And ...... Gordon Brown tells us he intends to make Health and Education his priorities. Both are devolved matters and thus the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament in Scotland. So any legislation on these, his "areas of priority", will NOT apply to his own constituents. How's that for democracy ?

The Union? Stuff the Union.

The Blairs and those pesky neighbours

Could news that the Blairs are house hunting again have any connection to a certain lack of affinity with their Connaught Square neighbours pictured here?

Not only is Connaught square smack in the middle of London's most Arab of neighbourhoods, whose occupants are likely to have a pretty jaundiced view of Tony's efforts on their behalf, but it seems that they have ignored a string of invitations from the Connaught Square Squirrel Hunt to attend its meets. Joint Master Duncan Macpherson is perplexed

"The Blairs would enjoy the exercise, companionship and honest exchange of views"

he says.

However, the invitation does NOT extend to the annual Hunt Ball at Banqueting House.
In Duncan's words:

"The Blairs would certainly add a degree of tawdry glamour to the occasion, but the Security Service would have to background check our guests and I'd be disappointed if half of them didn't have something to hide. Also, the presence of so many loaded guns in the hands of non-country folk would make people a bit twitchy."

- Quite so.

So what of their reported viewing of a certain Buckinghamshire Country Pile as a prospective alternative home?

Oh dear. It seems there is just no escape from pesky neighbour problems. Winslow Hall has a long established tradition of hosting the Bicester and Whaddon Chase Hunt Boxing Day meet. Having the Blairs as neighbours may be just about bearable - maybe. But another dose of sanctimonious Blairite tradition trampling over what is one of the local 'events of the year' ???

Hmmm.

UK 2017: under surveillance

Neil Mackay in Scotland's Sunday Herald provides the following introduction to a report commissioned by the UK Information Commissioner entitled "A Report on the Surveillance Society":

IT is a chilling, dystopian account of what Britain will look like 10 years from now: a world in which Fortress Britain uses fleets of tiny spy-planes to watch its citizens, of Minority Report-style pre-emptive justice, of an underclass trapped in sink-estate ghettos under constant state surveillance, of worker drones forced to take on the lifestyle and values of the mega-corporation they work for, and of the super-rich hiding out in gated communities constantly monitored by cameras and private security guards.

This Orwellian vision of the future was compiled on the orders of the UK's information commissioner - the independent watchdog meant to guard against government and private companies invading the privacy of British citizens and exploiting the masses of information currently held on each and every one of us - by the Surveillance Studies Network, a group of academics.

On Friday, this study, entitled A Report on the Surveillance Society, was picked over by a select group of government mandarins, politicians, police officers and academics in Edinburgh. It is unequivocal in its findings, with its first sentence reading simply: "We live in a surveillance society." The information commissioner, Richard Thomas, endorses the report. He says: "Today, I fear that we are, in fact, waking up to a surveillance society that is already all around us."

The academics who compiled the study based their vision of the future not on wild hypotheses but on existing technology, statements made about the intentions of government and private companies and studies by other think tanks, regulators, professional bodies and academics.

The report authors say that they believe the key theme of the future will be "pervasive surveillance" aimed at tracking and controlling people and pre-empting behaviour. The authors also say that their glimpse of the future is "fairly conservative. The future spelled out in the report is nowhere near as dystopian and authoritarian as it could be."

Read how UK 2017 might look here

.... And remember - you will have nothing to fear so long as you're not doing anything 'wrong'. Because Big Brother is a good, kind, beneficent Big Brother. A Big Brother who always has your best interests at heart; who can be relied upon to protect you from wicked 'Terrorists' and anything else harmful to your wellbeing - including yourself.

"Phoney Soldiers"

The following is an extended comment from a post on a US military blogg. The post itself is by Alex, a young soldier (pictured) who has just returned from an extended 1 year tour of duty in Iraq. It is his second post dealing with Rush Limbaugh, a US MSM columnist, dubbing those in the military who voice opposition to the Iraq war as 'Phony Soldiers'. The post comment encapsulates a burgeoning domestic disillusionment with 'The American Dream'. It's description of the gross subordination and corruption of the political process to the interests of Plutocratic Globalised Corporate America and its military enforcers in a largely phony 'War on Terror' rang some loud bells with me.

Well Alex, I knew it would happen. Your last post got Americans sided off and slinging shit in the now usual polarized way, wasting the American dream with all of its great potential unrealized. We could have been a better country than this. I for one am no longer willing to argue with people who are bitterly, viscerally opposed to everything I believe and know.

All any of us have is our own reality, arrived at carefully or carelessly. Me, I'm a Democrat, lifetime. I study the Constitution and read the writings of the Founders. I think about what is required of an American citizen if our grand experiment is to survive. I read all I can from as many diverse sources as I can find to understand what's going on in the world. I arrive at my own views. I don't want them spoon-fed to me.

I didn't believe Bush even while he campaigned for the White House with his promise of a "humble" foreign policy. I knew who was behind him. I was right. When 9/11 came I was as traumatized and angry as anybody. But I also knew there was something fishy about it, and something very convenient for the neoconservatives. Apparently, by the way they responded to Bush's way of talking about it, a lot of Americans thought 9/11 was as simple as a glass of spilled milk. They still do today.

When within weeks 9/11 rage was steered onto the need to crush Iraq, I KNEW there was something fishy about it. I knew a lot about Iraq. After all, we'd been to war there ten years earlier. I was highly skeptical of the allegations coming from the White House all pressing for war. I was 100% skeptical about the flowers and chocolates and cakewalk talk, because I knew about the way the horrible Hussein had with blood and fear held together the incompatible ethnic and religious divides in that country, had been keeping the lid on what would explode into chaos without him or someone like him.

I knew Iraq and al Qaeda in league was an impossible farce. I knew it. I knew it, damn me. I knew it but I let the administration sow doubt in my mind. And then, the only way I can put it is, Americans became the victims of terror for the second time in a year. What am I referring to? I am referring to the specter of a "mushroom cloud over an American city" -- Saddam's nuclear weapons given to his partner bin Laden and blowing us up. Who could have the gall to terrify Americans, reeling from 9/11, with this if it wasn't true?

Cheney said it. Bush said it. Rice said it. Rumsfeld might have said it, I can't remember. Then Limbaugh screamed it. Hannity screamed it. O'Reilly screamed it. All of FOX TV and AM talk radio screamed it. A bunch of Paul Reveres, apparently... patriots sounding the call to arms.

And then, like 95% of Americans, I blinked. I flinched. I turned my back on everything I knew about the matter, because in my heart of hearts I did not believe any US government could lie to the American people about something like that. To do so would be an unspeakable act of cruelty and cynicism inflicted on a whole country suffering varying degrees of PTSD from watching those planes hit the skyscrapers again and again, hundreds of times, thousands of times. I fell back to the usual place we go when we surrender our freedom and sovereignty as citizens, accepting that I did not have the intelligence that the White House had, that this was something only they could know, something they would never say if it wasn't true, and doubt it as I might, I could not afford to disbelieve it, which would be tantamount to inviting the blinding sun-bright mushroom of death over my own city and my own loved ones. So when Shock and Awe came, I was all right with it.

But I was wrong and 95% of America was wrong. Bush lied. Cheney lied. Rice lied. They knew they were trick-fucking a defenseless public and they had the cold heart to go right ahead and do it. And so did their cheerleader Rush Limbaugh.

Americans want to trust their leaders. But the unspeakable has happened and we've been had. It's all out in the open now. But many still can't face the truth.

And here we arrive at the end of my little confession. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. I will not be a child who trusts his child molester daddy. I will not be a wife who trusts her wife-beater husband.

The architects of this war, and their media mouthpieces, have committed the ultimate acts of savagery and contempt against the very people who depend on them with their lives for nobility, for courage, for selfless leadership, for the TRUTH. They have betrayed us, over and over again, day in, day out, with their lies and their fear mongering.

Look at the comments on your last post. Why are we a divided nation, as divided as we've ever been since the Civil War, divided friend against friend, father against son, family against family? Because of LIARS, cynical, heartless liars with hidden self-serving agendas that cannot stand the light of day. Liars do not heal or unite or produce happy outcomes. But they can divide. Look at us.

I don't care about Rush Limbaugh or George Bush. Just don't tread on me any more, fellas. Keep the snake oil to yourselves. I am awake again. And I'm not going back to sleep. I am committed to only one thing: trying to pick my country up from the rubble of division, confusion and fear to which it has been reduced, and to attempt CPR on the American Dream until somebody pulls me off the body politic and pulls a sheet over it. That's all there is left to do.

The rest of the blogg provides unvarnished insights into the ugly realities of the occupation. As for example in Alex's description of a relatively trivial incident consequent on revised tactics intended to get the military to interact with Iraqui civilians more:

We were one of few units to see Iraq before and after the surge. If the media got anything right, it was that the surge failed. The idea, as birthed in a bloody, mucous-y blob of counter production by General Petreaus, is quite simple on paper, impossible to execute in a meddling reality. The concept is that combat troops would move from their huge bases that housed obscene luxuries like beds, flushing toilets and running water, and into outposts within the most dangerous parts of the city. The key to it all would be 24/7 interaction with Iraqi Army and a constant presence among the Iraqi citizens, giving them confidence in the mission of coalition forces. The building we picked used to be a whiskey distillery, and we've been busy putting up concrete barriers and wire around it. A house was too close to where the wall was supposed to be, so engineers blew it to smithereens and sent the family packing. The father owned the plot for forty years and comes by every so often to collect the useful bricks left scattered a hundred yards in every direction. Before he entered once, I patted his seventy year old frame down like a common criminal.

Talk about community interaction!

Flintoff's Joints

England cricket captain Andrew Flintoff is reported on 5 live this morning as having flown to Amsterdam to "see a well-known joint specialist" - strictly for medicinal purposes of course.

Hat tip to Blairwatch

Peter Tatchell and 9/11

I'm not a big fan of Peter Tatchell. Over the years, whilst acknowledging its overall validity, his 'in-your-face' style of protest about 'gay-rights' had me mildly bemused. However, it was when he started to demand that hunting be outlawed (ie that a fundamental aspect of my life be made illegal) whilst similarly demanding all manner legal safeguards, freedoms, special treatment etc for his own minority, that I was forced to conclude that he was just another hypocrite, blinded by his own particular brand of prejudice.

Having said all that, his readiness to put himself at risk for his beliefs (as when he got a beating whilst trying to 'arrest' Robert Mugabe in Brussels back in 2001 for example) remains impressive. Similarly with his latest piece on 'Comment is Free' about 9/11. He risks being branded a tin-foil-hat-wearing conspiracy nutter - which is exactly the thrust of many of the comments on the piece.

Anyway; here's my take on the matter:

The principal issue raised in his piece has nothing whatever to do with wacky conspiracy theories and everything to do with reasonable demands for a thorough, open and properly funded inquiry - free from the partisan pressure of 'The official Narrative' - into the biggest terrorist attack in history. That is EXACTLY what the authors of the existing inquiry report say did NOT happen - and it's not much to ask. To those who say 'it's obvious what happened, move on' etc etc (usually accompanied by outraged ridiculing insults), I say it is very far from obvious. It is no exaggeration to say that 9/11 has changed the course of history. 'Cui Bono?' should therefore dictate a major strand of any such inquiry. After all, from readily available public information, it's not much of a stretch to postulate that key figures in the US Administration had, at the very least, both the motive and the means to make the success of such an attack more likely.

'Perish the thought' is the standard response, but that's exactly the problem. The thought that one's own government could be complicit in such an event is so scary and abhorrent that it is immediately discounted out-of-hand. The net result is that 'Kill the messenger' is applied to anyone who raises the issue - in spades - as is amply demonstrated in the article's comments.

Those with 'both motive and means' know that such a reaction can be relied upon absolutely.

After all we're not called 'The Sheeple' for nothing you know.

Alisher Usmanov threatens ISP's

Alisher Usmanov is one of those mega-rich Russian expats (oligarchs is the favoured MSM description these days) seeking a refuge for their ill-gotten gains in mega-rich-gangster-friendly London. Like his compatriot Roman Abramovich at Chelsea, he is currently trying to buy a trophy UK Premiership football club - Arsenal

Craig Murray published a piece about Usmanov on his blogg in early September 2007. Craig has first hand knowledge of Usmanov's past and his connections with the Uzbek regime of Islam Karimov from his time as British Ambassador there. The piece was scathing in its allegations of the disreputable and thuggish nature of Usmanov's past. Needless to say, Usmanove didn't like it.

Usmanov's solicitors, Messrs Shillings, initially forced Craig's ISP to remove the article under threat of expensive litigation. But not before at least 3 others had mirrored/published it. They have now succeeded in closing down his entire blogg and at least 1 other fairly high profile blogg that published it over here - Tim Ireland with similar threats. Since this action involved shutting down an entire server, it has also disabled other high profile blogs (Boris Johnson and Bob Piper for example). So far as I know it is only the ISP's that have been threatened so far, with no formal legal proceedings initiated against either the ISP's or Craig. Craig has made it quite clear that he would welcome any such action against him because he is confident of his allegations and Usmanov would be forced to refute them in a court of law and under oath. Judge for yourself:

This from Craig Murray's Blogg, dateline September 2nd, 2007

Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal chairman, is a Vicious Thug, Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist

I thought I should make my views on Alisher Usmanov quite plain to you. You are unlikely to see much plain talking on Usmanov elsewhere in the media becuase he has already used his billions and his lawyers in a pre-emptive strike. They have written to all major UK newspapers, including the latter:

“Mr Usmanov was imprisoned for various offences under the old Soviet regime. We wish to make it clear our client did not commit any of the offences with which he was charged. He was fully pardoned after President Mikhail Gorbachev took office. All references to these matters have now been expunged from police records . . . Mr Usmanov does not have any criminal record.”

Let me make it quite clear that Alisher Usmanov is a criminal. He was in no sense a political prisoner, but a gangster and racketeer who rightly did six years in jail. The lawyers cunningly evoke “Gorbachev”, a name respected in the West, to make us think that justice prevailed. That is completely untrue.

Usmanov’s pardon was nothing to do with Gorbachev. It was achieved through the growing autonomy of another thug, President Karimov, at first President of the Uzbek Soviet Socilist Republic and from 1991 President of Uzbekistan. Karimov ordered the “Pardon” because of his alliance with Usmanov’s mentor, Uzbek mafia boss and major international heroin overlord Gafur Rakimov. Far from being on Gorbachev’s side, Karimov was one of the Politburo hardliners who had Gorbachev arrested in the attempted coup that was thwarted by Yeltsin standing on the tanks outside the White House.

Usmanov is just a criminal whose gangster connections with one of the World’s most corrupt regimes got him out of jail. He then plunged into the “privatisation” process at a time when gangster muscle was used to secure physical control of assets, and the alliance between the Russian Mafia and Russian security services was being formed.

Usmanov has two key alliances. he is very close indeed to President Karimov, and especially to his daughter Gulnara. It was Usmanov who engineered the 2005 diplomatic reversal in which the United States was kicked out of its airbase in Uzbekistan and Gazprom took over the country’s natural gas assets. Usmanov, as chairman of Gazprom Investholdings paid a bribe of $88 million to Gulnara Karimova to secure this. This is set out on page 366 of Murder in Samarkand.

Alisher Usmanov had risen to chair of Gazprom Investholdings because of his close personal friendship with Putin, He had accessed Putin through Putin’s long time secretary and now chef de cabinet, Piotr Jastrzebski. Usmanov and Jastrzebski were roommates at college. Gazprominvestholdings is the group that handles Gazproms interests outside Russia, Usmanov’s role is, in effect, to handle Gazprom’s bribery and sleaze on the international arena, and the use of gas supply cuts as a threat to uncooperative satellite states.

Gazprom has also been the tool which Putin has used to attack internal democracy and close down the independent media in Russia. Gazprom has bought out - with the owners having no choice - the only independent national TV station and numerous rgional TV stations, several radio stations and two formerly independent national newspapers. These have been changed into slavish adulation of Putin. Usmanov helped accomplish this through Gazprom. The major financial newspaper, Kommersant, he bought personally. He immediately replaced the editor-in-chief with a pro-Putin hack, and three months later the long-serving campaigning defence correspondent, Ivan Safronov, mysteriously fell to his death from a window.

All this, both on Gazprom and the journalist’s death, is set out in great detail here:
http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2007/06/russian_journal.html

Usmanov is also dogged by the widespread belief in Uzbekistan that he was guilty of a particularly atrocious rape, which was covered up and the victim and others in the know disappeared. The sad thing is that this is not particularly remarkable. Rape by the powerful is an everyday hazard in Uzbekistan, again as outlined in Murder in Samarkand page 120. If anyone has more detail on the specific case involving Usmanov please add a comment.

I reported back in 2002 or 2003 in an Ambassadorial top secret telegram to the Foreign Office that Usmanov was the most likely favoured successor of President Karimov as totalitarian leader of Uzbekistan. I also outlined the Gazprom deal (before it happened) and the present by Usmanov to Putin (though in Jastrzebski’s name) of half of Mapobank, a Russian commercial bank owned by Usmanov. I will never forget the priceless reply from our Embassy in Moscow. They said that they had never even heard of Alisher Usmanov, and that Jastrzebski was a jolly nice friend of the Ambassador who would never do anything crooked.

Sadly, I expect the football authorities will be as purblind. Football now is about nothing but money, and even Arsenal supporters - as tight-knit and homespun a football community as any - can be heard saying they don’t care where the money comes from as long as they can compete with Chelsea.

I fear that is very wrong. Letting as diseased a figure as Alisher Usmanov into your club can only do harm in the long term.

Update 1
Tim Ireland is back with the start of an expected comprehensive rundown on what exactly happened. Chicken Yoghurt has collated and posted a lot of useful information on the matter

Update 2
Definitive list of supporting bloggs plus other links can be found here

Sixth Anniversary of 9/11

Expect wall-to-wall coverage of the events of September 11th 2001 on this the sixth anniversary.

But among all the reports of silences observed, loved ones mourned and bravery recognised, do not expect to hear ANY criticism or questioning of the official narrative of those events. An official narrative so riddled with inconsistencies and persistently, perversely, unanswered questions, as to render its credibility on a par with the wackiest of 'Conspiracy theories'.

And what of the resulting 'War on Terror'? And those inane, infantile sound-bites trotted out in its justification?

• They hate us for our freedom.
• We're fighting them there so they don't come over here.
• Saddam Hussein supported 9/11.
• No one could've predicted they'd use planes as missiles.
• They caught us by surprise.
• The fires caused the buildings to collapse.
• Flight 93 was taken down by hero passengers.
• George Bush made us feel secure during those days.

And many many more in similar vein?

This video sums up my feelings about latter-day America (and its British poodle) - and the narrative of the US leading an alliance of good western nations against the forces of evil in the world. The reality is that we are so self-obsessed, self-righteous and blinded by the hubris of Empire (British one lost and US one in progress) - that too many of us actually believe we have some God-given duty to require the rest of the world to see things our way - OR ELSE !!

As for questioning the official narrative of ANYTHING - forget it. After all, the State is our protector and would never do anything that was not in the best interests of its Sheeple - now would it?



( Hat-tip to Vidiot )

The politician's credo

The politician's credo and guide to greasy-pole climbing. (in furtherance of the noble purposes of the State)

Creed: I believe in one God - His name is 'PROGRESS'; and in his handmaidens: 'FREEDOM' & 'PERPETUAL EXPONENTIAL ECONOMIC and POPULATION GROWTH' - on our finite planet (now there's a miracle-in-progress for you)

Leitmotif: There has never been a civilization so wise, clever, advanced and all-knowing as ours. (My name is Ozymandias)

Liturgical guide - In furtherance of the one true faith:

Anyone who does not subscribe and adhere to the latter-day religion of PROGRESS, based on Perpetual Economic Growth and Globalisation, is a REACTIONARY which, in this most fundamental of matters, is heresy - if not treason - and must be dealt with accordingly.

Evangelise; Demonise; Cajole; Interfere; Regulate; Tax; Ban; Force; Grant Rights; Impose duties - All in the name of PROGRESS & FREEDOM. (our enemies hate us because we are free you know - so we must fight the enemies of freedom).

Feed the population a diet of faux-culture - of soccer, celebrity, reality TV and sex - as the very pinnacle of civilized living. Define the boundaries of political debate. Ridicule or ostracize those who dare speak outside those boundaries, or question the official narrative of history, or of who and what we are. Silence them if they show signs of becoming effective. Make them dependent on the State for their wellbeing and protection from the things they most fear. Do not allow them to protect themselves. If necessary, manufacture those fears. At least stoke them up and exaggerate them. They will become correspondingly grateful, docile, compliant and complicit in 'The System' (that imprisons and enslaves them). But, above all, distrust them and remain vigilant for signs of effective dissent.

Be hyper-active about ruling the minutiae of their lives. Control both narrative and agenda. Reality for the masses must be what we say it is. The truth is the Official Record. All hail the Nanny-State and it's iron-fisted enforcers (those fine upstanding executioners in blue).

-----------------------
And on these fundamentals, it matters not what political party you vote for. In orchestral terms they are all 'variations on a theme' - the same tired worn-out, discredited theme of PROGRESS (towards what I wonder)

Climate change? Pollution? Resource constraints? Poverty? Population overshoot? Sustainability of the unsustainable? Our solemn right - nay duty - to invade any country we choose in furtherance of our 'Values'? - Forget them. They are anathemas and the preoccupation of fools, knaves, revolutionaries and traitors. WE ARE THE GOODIES - at the very pinnacle of humanity's PROGRESS (that word again) to date and so, the world simply MUST be made to see things our way, OR ELSE !"

---------------------
"So, Let's see. We're having a light policy day. What new pearl of political wisdom can we politicians propose for the poor dear Sheeple to chatter aimlessly about?

I Know! - let's ban plastic bags!"

Says it all really.
---------------------
(This post arose from a comment I posted on Ian Dale's Blog in response to his proposal that plastic bags be banned. It pushed some buttons and I had a rant - as is my way these days)

Bedless in Basra. A Review of a Predictable Disaster

A view of the British Basra withdrawal and the whole UK/US involvement in Iraq that you will not find in our supine mainstream media, where a consensus degree of 'Patriotism' (that last refuge of scoundrels) is de-rigeur. It would simply be too painful for us to have to recognise ourselves as anything other than the Goodies, wouldn't it? - 'With guns in our hands and God on our side' as the old Bob Dylan song has it; but the road to Iraqi Hell has been paved with Blair's claimed 'good-intentions'.

Felicity Arbuthnot is an Irish reporter who cuts through all the crap about our noble intentions to the catastrophe that we have visited upon Iraq. Her view is far closer to the truth of the matter than the official sanctimonious arrogance - and accords very much with my own. Here are a couple of brief excerpts:

"So the British have finally slunk off, in the dead of night, from their squatted palace in central Basra, to the old air base at Shuaiba, west of the city. The new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has worked hard to dress up slinking as victory. Our brave boys, he said, have brought to the South stability, they have rebuilt schools, hospitals, electric power stations (which they destroyed over thirteen years of illegal bombings during the embargo and then finally flattened in an illegal invasion.) Actually, speak to any one in Basra and they say they are by far worse off than under Saddam Hussein, who restored some semblance of normality, after 1991's forty two day carpet bombing, in just months, in spite of the embargo on a country which broadly, imported seventy percent of everything, including maintenance and essential materials."

During the embargo, the British and Americans flew together, in the south and the north, bombing painstakingly reconstructed essentials, built from cannibalized parts from another facility beyond hope. As soon as they were finished, Basra airport, water purification plants, electricity sub-stations, they were bombed again. The Iraqis repaired again, only for them to be bombed again. Now, we are told, the invaders must stay 'until Iraqis can stand on their own feet'. (Read: until we have helped steal the oil.) The bombing was often continual. One day, sitting in a cafe, a bombing rocked the area, the blast deafening. Crockery and cutlery rattled and fell. I jumped. No one else even looked up. It was the norm. Children were still losing life and limb from the 'bomblets' which were dropped in 1991, made to look like tempting shiny toys. How seriously sick are weapons designers?

Do yourself a favour. Read the entire piece and help yourself 'to see ourselves as others (with ample justification) see us'.

For Jean Charles de Menenez RIP

The second IPCC report into the Stockwell Tube shooting of Jean Charles de Menenez is available online here

Unlike the 'Stockwell 1' report on the circumstances surrounding the shooting itself, this report has been made public - though to what purpose, considering the relative trivialities of its content, is unclear - unless to further divert attention from the substantive issues surrounding the public execution of an innocent man. The report deals only with the handling of public statements by the police in the aftermath of the shooting. It makes mild criticism of one senior officer but finds no other substantive fault.

So where does that leave us? The officer in overall control of operations that day has been promoted to Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Met Police. The firearms officers themselves are back on firearms duty. No individual police officer has been, or is to be prosecuted for any offence. The Met is to be prosecuted under Health and Safety at Work legislation - honestly - HEALTH & SAFETY AT WORK - you just couldn't make it up could you?.

And we, the poor fearful sheeple, are expected to be grateful and accept that it was all just a ghastly accident - brave executioners under dreadful pressure, poor dears - and nobody is to blame for anything.

Phew! so that's alright then.

Two points:

1. The police know, with cast-iron certainty, that they will always be given the benefit of any doubt in pretty well any circumstances. That knowledge affects their behaviour. If somebody KNOWS they can get away with murder, we should not be too surprised when, under this or that pressure, they commit murder - and so it has proved. It's called moral hazard and it applies to the police in spades. They had constructed a narrative for themselves that day. It had them expecting to confront a dangerous armed terrorist intent on exploding a bomb in public. Their blood was up. They were hot on the heels of a serious baddie; they were going to nail him - and it destroyed their judgment. Neither report appears to have anything useful to say on that simple over-riding fact - although we'll have to wait for an indeterminate length of time to see the contents of Stockwell 1 - if it is ever made public.

2. The officers who carried out the execution were back on firearms duty a few months later. How can anyone who knows he has executed an innocent man be unaffected by it, to the extent of returning to similar duty in the knowledge that he may be called upon to do the same again - unless he is an automaton (a pseudonym for 'highly professional' these days one presumes) or maybe gets a kick out of killing people in cold blood knowing he will be neither publicly indentified nor held to serious account.

Update 1.
A report on the grilling of the Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair arising from the Stockwell 1 Report here.

Barrister Peter Herbert called on Sir Ian to resign, a demand the commissioner resisted: "I'm not going to resign over this issue. I hope the people of London will make a judgment on my commissionership on the whole of my stewardship."

Sir Ian said he wished he had known earlier that the wrong man had been shot. The questioning led him to admit: "We got it appallingly wrong, but we are not guilty of complete idiocy. My feeling is if this happened again the information would flow very differently."

Says it all really.

'Information flow' ?? - 'we'll get that right next time around - promise' - (and of course there will be a next time.)

Executing an innocent man?? 'oops, sorry. These things happen you know - but he was just a foreigner with an out-of-date visa, so it could have been worse'

God they make me sick.

Living in La-La Land

The following paraphrases a letter from a UK Oil Industry insider to a widely read 'Peak Oil' commentator in the US - Jim Kunstler. I have paraphrased it for UK readers and interspersed it with a few comments of my own.

As someone who works in the UK oil industry, I thought you might be interested in a view of how prepared the UK is for future oil shortages.

[The short answer: It isn't. It's living in La-La Land - see below]

I have just finished a stint as an engineer on the Forties pipeline terminal. Prior to that I had spent some 30 years working in various parts of the oil and nuclear sectors as a chemical/process engineer.

The career outlined above has provided me with an acute insight into how the UK oil industry is preparing for the future. Essentially, it is abandoning the UK. BP has either sold-off or closed all its UK refineries (the last one to go was Grangemouth) and now only retains its Forties & Sullom Voe interests. Shell is planning to swap over to Middle-east crude around 2011 at its single remaining UK refinery and is busy selling off most of its European refineries. Any questions as to whether Middle-east crude will be available to the UK in 2011 are studiously ignored.

[Though such questions provide insight into just why Iraq, with the worlds largest undeveloped reserves of what remains of the worlds oil endowment together with the ME generally, warrants such vast military expenditure and war-fighting effort by both the UK and US. There is thus an assumption by the oil companies that the West's clear determination to effectively control ME oil distribution will be successful - That's one BIG BIG assumption given burgeoning demand from China and the bitter resentments being generated throughout the Arab/Muslim world]

The general attitude is one of, 'Since we will need the oil, it will be available'. All of the above points to the oil companies foreseeing a pretty bleak future for their UK and European refining operations.

[But we carry on with a road and airports building program that assumes both road and air traffic will expand by upwards of 25% over the next 15-20years. The oil industry knows that refined petroleum products to fuel this expansion will simply not be available. They brief politicians - but silence is the order of the day. Anything that casts doubt on the latter-day religion of constant Economic Growth and 'Progress' (to what I wonder?) is political heresy, to be dealt with in similar fashion to other taboo subjects like immigration and race issues for example - ignore, marginalize or otherwise kill the messenger]

Within BP, the message from senior management is that their Forties terminal will still be in operation 20 years from now. What they fail to mention, even to their own employees is just how little oil and gas will be coming out of the North sea by then. This is quite weird given that North Sea production dropped another 10% last year, despite Buzzard crude coming ashore.

[As did two other super-giant fields - Mexico's Cantarell and the US's Prudhoe Bay with the daddy of them all, Saudi Arabia's Ghawar teetering on the brink of decline]

While much of the thinking inside the UK oil industry is delusional, outside of it we are pretty much living in La-La land. Both the government and the media are obsessed with global warming. Barely an evening passes without a news item relating to icebergs melting, heat stroke in Polar bears or the sad absence of lichen for reindeer etc. Inside the oil industry it is well known that the UK government is regularly briefed by the oil companies. Evidently the government have made the decision to use global warming as a way of encouraging thrift in oil usage - but with absolutely no effect.

[Meanwhile the assumptions of massive increases in both air and road travel remain a given of political discourse]

What is never mentioned in the media is the crashing of North Sea oil production. A recent documentary about oil exploration in the Arctic managed to completely ignore why such desperate measures might be required.

In terms of politics, the Labour party evidently regard discussions about oil depletion as near treason, whilst the Tory party is still proud of the way they defeated the miners. Neither party is exactly in the right frame of mind to restart the nuclear industry or open up new coal mines.

Perhaps the worst aspect of the UK shitstorm in preparation, is the way the Labour party is allowing and even encouraging supermarkets to destroy farming in the UK. (Farmers generally hate the Labour party as being a bunch of clueless idiots - quite perceptive really). Agricultural production has dropped disastrously in recent years, with thousands of farmers being forced into bankruptcy by the monopolies enjoyed by the likes of Tesco (big and nasty) and Sainsbury (smaller and nasty). At least the USA still has a huge amount of good land available. In the UK, we are packed in like sardines in terms of population density, which spells disaster when the oil gets short.

[Ten calories of hydrocarbon energy is currently used by way of fertilisers, primary production, processing and transport, for every calorie of food that a UK citizen eats. Our food supply is organized on a 'just-in-time' basis with maybe 3 day's consumption on retail shelves at any one time and over 50% of it shipped in by sea or air. Lessons learned the hard way through WWII have not only been been forgotten but are now routinely derided as irrelevant - our best arable land is better put to urban theme park and house building uses init eh?. But, with the confluence of 'Peak-Oil', exponential worldwide population growth, and climate change, an overpopulated island nation that cannot feed itself is heading for very serious trouble.]

Take that look off your face

His Toniness' departure prompted memory of this masterpiece.

The full ghastliness of the man in just a minute and a half of video. It was done as a party political advertisment by the Conservative Party and shown in cinemas in the South East in the run up to the 2005 general election. Note in particular the

"This is not a day for soundbites ....."

hesitate, hesitate, lower lip tremble then, the daddy of all 'sound-bites':

".... But we feel the hand of history on our shoulders"

The Royal "we" being characteristic too.

The Marti Webb/Andrew Lloyd Webber song is impressive though.

To think that a majority of voter (except in England in 2005) voted for the man in 3 successive general elections. Frankly with a track record like that, this country deserves all that's coming to it.

Oil, Smoke & Mirrors

I've been pre-occupied with 'Peak Oil' and its relationship to constant government sponsored scare-mongering about the so called (and to me clearly phony) 'war on terror' lately. Complex subjects both, but deeply intertwined and plagued with 'smoke and mirrors'.

So the title of this video caught my eye. It is a disturbingly convincing introduction to the issues.